The U.S. Coast Guard successfully rescued a stranded boater and his dog when their vessel began taking on water off the coast of Florida during Hurricane Helene on Thursday.
Officials said they received the unnamed man’s distress call after his nearly 10-metre-long boat “became disabled” and started to fill with water about 40 kilometres away from Sanibel Island, Fla.
In dramatic video of the rescue, the sailor’s boat is seen alone on choppy waters. A Coast Guard member deploys from an overhead helicopter and guides the man and his canine, both wearing life jackets, to a buoyant safety basket. The duo is then lifted onto the helicopter, where the man shakes hands with his rescuers.
The sailor and his dog were in good medical condition, the Coast Guard reported. They were taken to Southwest Florida International Airport to be treated by emergency medical services.
It’s not clear why the man and his dog were boating despite hurricane warnings in the region. As of this writing, their boat is still adrift.
Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm in northwestern Florida on Thursday evening with maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 mph (225 km/h).
As of Friday morning, there have been at least three storm-related deaths in the U.S.
One person was killed in Florida when a sign fell on a car. Two others were reported dead as a result of a possible tornado that struck a mobile home in South Georgia as the storm approached.
On Friday, Hurricane Helene weakened to a tropical storm over Georgia with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center.
Helene prompted hurricane and flash flood warnings extending far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. More than 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, more than 190,000 in Georgia, and more than 30,000 in the Carolinas, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us. The governors of those states, as well as Alabama and Virginia, all declared emergencies.
Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1. Hurricane Helene is the eighth named storm of the season.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
— With files from the Associated Press